Late summer has produced broccoli plants with thick stalks ready for harvest. As hard as we try, there is far too much for us to stay on top of. It’s time to think about saving seed for next year and preserving the harvest for the winter months. Broccoli produces lovely yellow flowers that will develop into seeds. When broccoli flowers just begin to appear, you

A look back at May shows a lot of life and budding fruit on the homestead. This is a photo-heavy post of the spring sights I have been enjoying: flowers, veggies and Baby Junebug! My favorite spring flowering bulbs, Allium giganteum, came out in full force. The purple petals are fading away leaving what looks like a green pincushion behind. They will dry out and

Upon my arrival into Austin, Texas, I quickly made a beeline for the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. It is a place I have seen pictures of in my Landscape Architecture classes as a beautifully designed, sustainable landscape. If you are within 100 miles of Austin, it is worth the detour to see this spectacular place. I tend to flock to parks and gardens when I

The first post in this series covered the roles of different bees in the colony. The second post in this series talked about reproduction, swarming and environmental needs of a colony. This final post will focus on equipment needed to start keeping bees in the city and potential disease. Glen Andresen advised that a love of nature and a love of puttering is a good

The garden is undergoing the late summer change. I am allowing the lettuce to go to seed, so I can attempt to save them for next Spring. The arugula and spinach were allowed to do the same thing, and I pulled them out to dry about a week ago. I have never tried saving seed from my greens before, so this should be interesting… The

Last Sunday at the Lents International Farmer’s Market, they had a guest speaker come to talk about bee-keeping in the city. This has been something I have been curious about for some time, but I was never really sure if you could do that in the city. To answer that question, yes you can keep bees in the city. The speaker was a man name

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Hello homesteader! I'm Renee Wilkinson and this is where I've chronicled my adventures in homesteading since 2007. Here you will find 1,000+posts on modern homestead projects, edible landscape design and the occasional life update. Read More…